Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Optics Nightforce Users

I think as a whole, those interested, are more educated on what is currently considered the most reliable optics than in the past. Therefore it has become a common discussion.

I have scopes from $100 - $1000, with any of them if I can see an animal with my naked eye I can see it thru my scope. Sure some glass is better but when I cant see with my naked eye its time to go home.

I think riflescopes and or scope mounts have been the most common weakest link in not being successful in hunting or shooting. Now we have more choices. I prefer the weakest link to be me and not my equipment.

I will continue to use cheap scopes for some applications, but for simply hunting big game I will use what I believe is the most reliable scope with the best glass I can afford. If said scope can drive stakes that's even better. If its an issue that it weighs 10 oz more, I wont eat breakfast that morning.

Never understood why NF didn't offer it initially (have it on the 56mm version).
I'll definitely break out the wallet next year for one... or more.

The other factor I may have mentioned before is there's FAR less difference in riflescope optics than 20-25 years ago, when so many hunters obsessed over bright optics. The top end hasn't changed, at least from what I can tell through night-testing on my optics chart, with the very brightest scopes, since none have ever rated more than an 8 on the chart.

But for many years only a very few scopes rated an 8, and they all came from Europe and cost over $1000. Now far more scopes rate 8, and some cost under $1000.

In the meantime the vast majority of scopes costing around $500 will rate a 7, which was noticeably above average 20 years ago, and some costing in the $200 to $300 range rate a 7 as well. This is far brighter than the average non-European scope of 20-25 years ago, and brighter than some high-priced Euro-scopes back then.

All the Nightforce scopes I've tested in recent years have rated a 7+, as close to an 8 as possible on the scale. In hunting, there's no practical difference, and the reticle itself will make FAR more difference in aiming ability than that slight amount of optical brightness.

+1, well said.

Nightforce makes the SHV 3-10 with illumination (German #4 I think), it is not available in the North American market! Why isn't it? Beats the fugg out of me!

Skeen,

Form is trying to help everyone, whether they are open to it is a different problem. If the buck of a lifetime walks out, the scope needs to work correctly right then, not after a trip back to customer service. I recently purchased a barely used MRC 308, not exactly a hard recoiling rifle. It came with a Pentax scope on it, which I decided to try. It broke on the first range trip with under 30 rounds of cream puff loads with 130's I was working up for my wife. The first few groups were fine, typical ladder test group sizes. Then they started opening up with erractic placement. Same with a Zeiss that came on a lightly used 308 last year. It did not work correctly right from the beginning. The glass was fantastic, the groups looked like a shotgun spraying the target. Stuck a NXS Compact up top, and the photo below was the very first three shot group.

NF is arrogant and knows what you need and do not need. They make an outstanding product but have their heads up their ass in other ways. In addition they piss me off in that they will not sell the 1-8 with capped elevation and windage to ordinary mortals, its too good for us and can only be sold to LEO's and mil. Why do I need to dial a damn 8 power scope with no side focus parallax correction???

Better to be pissed off, than pissed on......

Now, that's a quotable...

DF

The original LRHS’s were really good. Bushnell let go of several key people that were responsible for the HDMR and LRHS lines, kind of losing what had made their tactical division what it was. Since then, while generally very reliable, there have been more problems from them. More in the last two years than all from the beginning until then in fact.



Regardless, what no one matches NF on is pre shipment checks. No one else checks every single scope for correct functioning, and POI shifts before the ship. So to that, regardless of how well something is built, it will have more failures than a NF.


A long way of saying, that while the LRHS are generally good scopes and I use them, no they are not NF reliable.

The 3-10 is coming with an illuminated duplex. I’ve already ordered them.

Sweet, when might they be in stock?

Great!

Ordered with whom?

Does it weight even more then?

Any other new options you can share?

Nothing big. I’ll probably get in trouble with them for even mentioning this!

Darrik,

Well done!

I think you're safe now :

http://www.nightforceoptics.com/shv/3-10x42

Gee, a few posts back somebody rather, uh, forcefully mentioned that NF doesn't listen to potential customers about what they want....

Right???!!!!!!